U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,041 describes a method and apparatus for progressive jackpot gaming in which a separate bet is utilized in a Twenty-One game in connection with the provision of a jackpot component. As described in that patent, a player may make an optional additional wager to be eligible to participate in a separate progressive jackpot. If, during the play of the normal Twenty-One game, the player achieves a predetermined arrangement of cards, the player wins all or part of the progressive jackpot amount.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,077 discloses an alternative payout structure for a progressive jackpot component of a Twenty-One game, with the objective of providing predetermined winning arrangements of cards which do not interfere with the play of the underlying Twenty-One game.
The entire disclosures of the two aforementioned patents are incorporated by reference herein.
It is a feature of the present invention that predetermined arrangements of cards that constitute winning hands for a progressive jackpot component of a Twenty-One game are selected so that the predetermined arrangements of cards do not interfere with the play of the normal Twenty-One game.
It is an additional feature of the present invention that a player may attempt to achieve one of the predetermined arrangement of cards that will win all or part of the progressive jackpot component of the normal Twenty-One game without interfering with the normal play of the Twenty-One game.